According to Gary Wais, a Baltimore malpractice lawyer with Wais Law, a Baltimore malpractice law firm, Maryland malpractice settlements are rising slightly as the cap is lifted by 15,000 dollars each year. The cap which attorney Wais is referring to is the statutory cap on non-economic damagesthat can be assessed in medical malpractice case.
Traditionally, juries have frequently been swayed emotionally to award large sums of money for the non-economic damage incurred as a result of physician negligence. More recently, Physician Organizations claimed thatthese large settlements were were responsible for a rise in medical costs. Insurance companies charged that the large pay-outs in medical malpractice cases, for pain and suffering and other non-economic damages, made them to sharply increase the cost of medical malpractice insurance.These complaints led legislators to put caps on the level of non-economic damages that could be assessed. The legal caps are different in every state, and some states have no caps, some states have caps on physician fees and or punitive damages, and seven states have recently repealed the caps, in rulings that declared them to be unconstitutional.
According to accurate studies, malpractice claims have been responsible for only a fraction of rising medical care costs. Many of the larger insurers are saying that while the medical malpractice caps do help to control the spending, they only see a 1% overall savings. Such a small increase in cost can hardly be held responsible for the overall rise in medical costs, which far exceeds 1%.
More recently, there has been a move in some states to repeal the payment caps. The caps have been attacked as being unconstitutional in that they put unnatural controls on the thinking of juries and judges during the trial process. As one lawmaker put it, "damage caps (which are essentially artificial and arbitrary limits placed on the amount of financial compensation that a victim of medical malpractice can receive) completely negate the judgment and intelligence of juries, who are trusted enough to vote in officials and put people to death. The caps also tie the hands of the trial judge, who might feel that a particular plaintiff deserves far more than the sum allowed by the caps. While seven states, as noted above, have alredy repealed the caps, this past November of 2010, the Maryland Appellate court turned down a similar effort to repeal the caps in Maryland.
The current limit for non-economic damage in Maryland is just under $700,000, nevertheless, courts can still deliver monster settlements to claimants. Monster settlements can occur when the injury inflicted on a client by a negligent physician, results in large loss of earning and large medical care bills. The recent case in Maryland concerned a child who was born with cerebral palsy after the physician failed to properly inform the family of all their treatment options during the last 40 days of the pregnancy. The child was severely injured and will have massive medical bills to pay his entire life. Juries have been known to increase the amount of money awarded for economic claims as compensation for the cap on the non-economic damages.
While large penalty damages against a malicious physician might also lead to large malpractice settlements in practice this rarely occurs. In Maryland, for example, claimants must show that the Doctor acted with malice against the victim, and this is rarely the case. Most negligent physicians have erred in the treatment rendered to the patient; however, they have no particular grudge against the victims of their sub-standard care.
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